Virgin Says U.K. High-Speed Route Requires Tilting Trains

Virgin Trains Chief Executive Officer Tony Collins said an option for procuring a tilting train should be included in an upcoming tender for the franchise now due in November 2014 after Virgin was granted a two-year extension. Source: Virgin Trains via Bloomberg

With the first phase of HS2 due to stretch just 100 miles
from London to Birmingham, trains that use it must be able to
continue at high speed after switching to the more sinuous West
Coast route serving Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, Virgin
Chief Executive Officer Tony Collins said in an interview.

Government plans call for stock able to run at 230 miles
per hour on HS2, as they market the line as an alternative to
air travel. While the fastest tilting model would be slower on
the new track, adding six minutes to a London-Birmingham trip,
its technological advantage would have an edge on the remaining
300 miles to Glasgow, bringing the journey below the four hours
at which rail can outcompete a plane, Collins said.

“A train coming off HS2 onto the West Coast at 100 miles an
hour will clog up everything behind it because that’s slower
than our Pendolinos,” Collins said, referring to the tilting
expresses introduced by Virgin in 2002. “But use a tilting train
and the Glasgow run can be cut to 3 1/2 hours from day one.”

Franchise Option

Construction of HS2 is slated to start in 2017, with the
first leg to Birmingham, including a spur to the West Coast
line, due to open in 2026. Phase two, which would permit 230 mph
running from London as far as Manchester and Leeds, isn’t
scheduled for completion until at least 2032.

Collins, whose company has operated the West Coast artery
since 1997, said an option for procuring a tilting train should
be included in an upcoming tender for the franchise now due in
November 2014 after Virgin was granted a two-year extension.

That’s after a probe found the Department for Transport was
guilty of faulty calculations in deciding to transfer the line
to FirstGroup Plc following a 5.5 billion-pound bid that Branson
had said from the start was absurdly high.

Virgin’s Pendolino fleet, built by Alstom SA of France, is
capable of 140 mph but capped at 125 mph due to the limitations
of signaling systems. A new generation of tilting stock capable
of 180 mph would also allow for the replacement of those trains
when life-expired after 30 years of operation, Collins said.

Victorian Curves

Whereas HS2 will be built arrow-straight to maximize speed,
the 175-year-old West Coast route is 70 percent curved, having
been built to the limits of Victorian engineering skills and
before the introduction of compulsory land purchase laws. Virgin
last year transported 31 million people on the route -- Europe’s
busiest mixed-use line -- up from 13 million when it took over.

“We back High Speed 2 as much-needed extra capacity, but
not the current thoughts on how it will be used,” he said. “It
must be integrated properly into the current network.”

Collins said franchising has been bedeviled by a “one-size-fits-all approach” and should be “tailor-made” to the needs
of routes that range from Virgin’s long distance service to
commuter lines such as partner Stagecoach Group Plc’s Southwest
Trains, which serves London from towns in southern England.

“West Coast faces real competition in terms of rail, road,
air and coach, but there’s also a huge opportunity to grow
patronage,” he said. “Southwest Trains has much less ability to
grow and there are not many opportunities for cars and planes.”

Welsh Electrification

The process also requires competent people to run it and is
ill-suited to civil servants uncomfortable without “defined
steps to tick,” he said, adding that the early years of
franchising in the 1990s offered more scope for varying bids.

Speaking before meeting with lawmakers at the House of
Commons to discuss his plans, the CEO said he’s also pressing
for further enhancements to the West Coast itself for the next
franchise period, which will run until the start of HS2.

Those should include signaling upgrades, overhead line
improvements and other measures that would allow the journey
time to Glasgow to be cut by 22 minutes to less than four hours
even without HS2, according to Collins, who spoke in his office
above London Euston station, the West Coast line’s terminus.

Virgin is also pressing for the electrification of the line
to Holyhead in north Wales to allow introduction of Pendolinos
on the route and would be willing to trial European Union-backed
in-cab signaling equipment as part of any agreement, he said.

The company also favors a dilution of the role of state-backed Network Rail, the owner of Britain’s train tracks and
stations, to allow companies to play a greater role in building
everything from car parks to shops and offices on railway land.

Upgrade Required

Euston, which will also be the hub for HS2, needs “urgent
improvement” after enhancements at Waterloo, King’s Cross, St
Pancras and London Bridge stations, and that should be done
sooner rather than later, Collins said. Virgin also wants
greater freedom to vary timetables and lay on special trains.

Collins, 55, held “very positive discussions” about his
plans in the meeting with members of the U.K. Parliament, Virgin
Trains spokesman Arthur Leathley said today.

Billionaire Branson, who controls 51 percent of Virgin
Trains with Stagecoach owning the rest, remains a rail
enthusiast, said Collins, adding that he has the go ahead to bid
for the East Coast line, currently run by state-appointed
Directly Operated Railways Ltd., should it be retendered.

“He was always passionate about the railway,” Collins
said. “What he has been upset about is that the franchise
proposition hasn’t rewarded quality, investment and development.
All it has done is reward whoever offers the highest price,
without being smart enough to know when it’s not deliverable.”